


Buffer.

by mentomoris



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: ADHD Character, Angst, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Fainting, Music, Self-Worth Issues, Sensory Overload, Sensory Processing Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22487704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentomoris/pseuds/mentomoris
Summary: Sensory processing disorder.Three big, long words that eleven-year-old Akoni couldn’t begin to understand when put together.Three words that Akoni represses, shoves to the back of his head for the rest of the time he’s completing the Gym Challenge, eight years that feel like millenia. I’ll deal with that later, he decides.Hah. Yeah, right. More like I’ll deal with it never.
Kudos: 9





	Buffer.

**Author's Note:**

> Sensory processing disorder is something I don't see represented or recognized nearly enough in today's world, so catch me projecting onto my gymsona... again! I suffer from frequent auditory migraines as a result of this disorder and use music as a buffer in loud environments. There are probably a bunch of errors in this, but please enjoy! :)

It takes Akoni two tries to beat his first gym — not because all of his Pokémon faint, but because _he_ is the one to faint. Or black out, at least.

At first, unbridled excitement is all the only thing that courses through the eleven-year-old’s veins. In fact, he practically sprints through the entire gym challenge, herding Wooloos as fast as he possibly can. He doesn’t care about the gym trainers as he sneaks straight past them — the only thing Akoni wants to show the gym leader his potential and get that badge.

But the moment Akoni steps foot in that arena, that excitement is ripped away from him. It’s not the bright flashing lights or the searing heat of a hot summer day that throw him off — what gets to him is the deafening screams of the crowd. He can’t pick any particular voice out of the masses, as the sounds blur together into one hellish cacophony roaring in his ears, but it’s far, far too much for him to handle.

Akoni shoves it down. He has to! There’s no way he can back down now. Maybe… maybe this is something every trainer feels during their first gym battle? There’s no way he’s about to be a coward and run — what kind of Pokémon trainer would he be if he did that?

So he, like an idiot, steps into the arena.

As overwhelmed as he is, the battle goes relatively smoothly. They trade blows as Akoni’s Drizzile manages to knock out the gym leader’s Eldegoss, but has to be recalled because of the Eldegloss's damage. Not to mention, he wasted his damn Dynamax, which leads to the gym leader’s Pansage taking out his Chewtle and Yamper.

They’re both down to their last Pokemon, and Akoni’s heart is beating so fast he feels like he’s going to pass out.

The gym leader yells something out to him, but whatever he’s saying, it goes right over his head. It definitely clicks, though, when they suddenly recall the Pansage and look to him with a grin.

_They’re Dynamaxing. Crap._

As the gym leader throws their Pokeball skyward, and Pansage re-emerges, there’s a shriek that puts the crowd’s overwhelming noise to shame.

Something inside Akoni’s brain snaps. Suddenly, the ground is a lot closer than he had originally thought.

The last thing he remembers is sinking to his knees, the roar of the crowd slowly fading in his ears.

He wakes up a couple of hours later at the local hospital. At some point, he explains how overwhelmed he had felt with all the screaming, and after some ~~interrogating~~ questioning from the nurses, how sudden noises had always freaked him out and how he tended to zone out more than he should in places where there’s a lot going on.

It’s not long before the staff at the hospital give him a label:

Sensory processing disorder.

Three big, long words that eleven-year-old Akoni couldn’t begin to understand when put together.

Three words that Akoni represses, shoves to the back of his head for the rest of the time he’s completing the Gym Challenge, eight years that feel like millennia. I’ll deal with that later, he decides.

_Hah. Yeah, right. More like I’ll deal with it never._

Though he does deal with it, in a way. When he’s fourteen, he gets a pair of headphones to go with his Rotom phone. Within months, there’s more gigabytes of music on the phone than data for his Pokedex. He also ends up discovering that the headaches he’s always had — auditory migraines, some doctor tells him at some point — can be soothed at least a little bit with music.

As he looks back on it all, it’s funny — in a grim way, at least. A gym leader who never shuts up, is always yelling excitedly, that flinches at every loud noise he’s not braced for.

Actually, could he call it funny? If anything, he’s just pathetic.

No one else has to wear headphones during gym battles to block out the very thing that made him get sensory overload and faint all those years ago. No one has to have music playing in their ears in loud public areas so not to get those crippling migraines that require far more Advil that what’s healthy to get rid of.

No one else needs a “buffer.”

What the fuck is wrong with him, why can’t he be like everyone else?

Why can’t his brain just… work the way it’s supposed to?

Is he broken?

He entertains that last thought more than he should, because admittedly, it’s sadly true -- at least partly. There’s not much recognition for what he has. No cure. Not many ways to manage it.

So when it comes time to battle, he’ll plaster that smile on his face, slip on those headphones, and blast music like there’s no tomorrow. Don’t get him wrong -- he loves being a gym leader. Taking on trainers and helping them see their potential is what he lives for. But god, sensory processing disorder is just exhausting and if he’s completely honest he can barely get through day after day of battling trainer after trainer, and that’s not even mentioning the meetings he has to have sometimes with the other gym leaders, and honestly that’s a whole other level of hell.

He doesn’t want to worry the others. So he keeps his mouth shut, slips on the headphones.

After all, it’s really the only thing he can do.


End file.
